


Compartments

by lears_daughter



Category: Alias (TV), Peppermint - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Crossover, One-shots mean never having to say you're sorry for not updating, Rambaldi still making Sydney's life hell, Riley North is Sydney Bristow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 19:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16001987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lears_daughter/pseuds/lears_daughter
Summary: Warning: Peppermint spoilers ahead.After the events of the movie, Sydney Bristow must contemplate her possible future, with the assistance of someone she'd never expected to see again.Or, my attempt to reconcile the worlds of Peppermint and Alias because badass!Jennifer Garner is one of my favorite things.





	Compartments

**Author's Note:**

> There are heavy spoilers for Peppermint and Alias throughout this fic.
> 
> If you're one of the people waiting for an update to One Step at a Time, I'm sorry about this!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Peppermint or Alias.

Riley North is the woman who unlocks her handcuffs and drags her broken and battered body out the hospital window, but it’s Sydney Bristow who hits the ground, grunts, and picks herself up. It’s Sydney who staggers down the block, hand pressed to her heavily-stitched side. It’s Sydney who fights tears—of grief, of devastating relief—as she rounds the corner, mind already racing ahead to ways to disappear. It’s Sydney who barely stops in time when a sleek Mercedes screeches to a halt in front of her.

She squints through the tinted passenger window, mute with surprise. Her concussion must be worse than she realized. The window rolls down and a man shouts: “Get in!”

For an instant, her mind flashes back to a time eons ago when she heard the same words, in a not-too-dissimilar situation. Then, however, it had been her father in the car, shocking her as much with his reappearance in her life as with his heroic actions.

Now, it’s…

“Sloane.” The name drops from her lips, drenched in shock and disgust and an unforgiveable smidgen of joy.

He doesn’t smile, but his eyes crinkle in a way she remembers all too well. “Hurry, Sydney,” he urges, and for some reason—perhaps temporary insanity, perhaps her well-known suicidal instincts—she obeys.

Her myriad injuries protest as she slides onto the leather seat and absently fastens the seatbelt. Ignoring the pain, she stares through the windshield as the car smoothly pulls back into traffic, determined not to look at the man driving.

(Is he a hallucination? How could he be alive, and looking not a day older than the last time she saw him?)

“I expected to be rescuing you from your hospital room,” Sloane says casually, his familiar, smooth voice taking her back to more innocent times. She’d admired him, once. He chuckled. “I should have known you’d get yourself out.”

She doesn’t bother explaining that one of the detectives aided her escape, nor that she’d fully hoped and expected her life to end in yesterday’s reign of justice. Instead, she clenches her hands in her lap and croaks desperately, “Isabelle? Jack?”

Sloane sets his hand on her shoulder. He’s warm, solid. Not a hallucination. “They’re well. Vaughn, too. I’ve kept my distance out of respect for you, but I’ve kept a close enough watch to make sure they were safe.” He sighs softly and returns his hand to the steering wheel. Her eyes catch on the thin white line where her father once severed his finger. “They’re beautiful, bright children, Sydney. You’d be proud.”

She shudders with relief and allows herself to sag into the embrace of her seat. Being forced to leave her family all those years ago had nearly killed her. It was only the thought that her absence was the best way to protect them that had kept her going. There are too many out there who still believe Sydney Bristow to be Rambaldi’s Chosen One and are willing to do anything to get their hands on her.

She hadn’t allowed herself to keep tabs on Vaughn and their children. It had been too painful; more importantly, it had been too dangerous. This is the first news she’s had of them in well over a decade, and for now gratitude overwhelms her complicated feelings—most of them negative—towards the messenger. She’s reminded that she does, in fact, have reasons to keep living.

“Where are we going?” Her voice is rusty. Since losing her youngest daughter five years ago, she’s listened far more than she’s talked. The naïve, outspoken Sydney of days past is long dead.

“You can imagine my shock when your face showed up on my news feed yesterday,” Sloane says. “All this time, I’ve thought you dead. You covered your tracks exceptionally well. You can’t imagine my relief, Sydney. I took the first flight here and rented a villa on the outskirts of town. We can lay low there until you decide where you’d like to go next.”

It’s all so matter-of-fact, as if they’re still at SD-6 or APO and he’s laying out their exfiltration parameters. As if he hadn’t had Danny killed. As if she hadn’t forgiven him, once, only to be betrayed again. As if her father hadn’t left him buried under a pile of rocks and presumed dead.

“Rambaldi’s followers will be after me again,” Sydney says. She shifts in her seat with a wince. No need to voice the conclusion: _I still can’t go home. I can never see Isabelle and Jack again, not without putting their lives in danger._

From the corner of her eye, she sees Sloane nod. “I have contacts who can help build you a new identity. Pick a place, anywhere in the world, and we will make you a life there.” He touches her hand. “You deserve to be happy, Sydney. I truly believe you will be, someday.”

Her eyes sting. She’s been on her own for so long, and working so hard to protect her new family before that. Having help, support, even from _Sloane_ of all people (— _How are you alive? Why did you survive and not Dad?—_ ), feels overwhelming.

“How can I trust you?” she demands, hating herself for the ragged edge to her voice.

“Can you afford not to?” he returns in that chiding, paternalistic tone she remembers all too well. Then he shakes his head, aggrieved with himself, and adds, “I think you know, despite everything that happened, that I’ve always cared about you. I’ve lied about so much, but never about that. If you can’t trust me, trust that I want you out in the world, continuing to be the extraordinary woman you’ve always been.”

He presses the brake at a red light and turns to look at her. His face is exactly as she remembered, but his eyes are somehow even darker as they move across her battered countenance. His lips tighten. “I have a very long, lonely existence ahead of me in which to contemplate my many failures. Eternity, if Rambaldi’s papers are to be believed. You’re the only person I love who’s still alive. Trust that I want you to stay that way.”

She knows the others who’ve been condemned by the love of Arvin Sloane. Sydney’s half-sister, Nadia. Her father, Jack Bristow. Poor, wonderful Emily. It would be so easy to throw the common denominator for each death—Sloane himself—in his face. She can see that he’s tensed, expecting her to do so. The Sydney of the past wouldn’t hesitate.

But she’s so tired. She’s lost _so many_ people. And the one that hurts the most, the one she just avenged, had nothing to do with Sloane. So, for now, she abstains, and imagines she sees gratitude in those dark, too-knowing eyes of his.

Instead, she leans her head against the headrest and closes her eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”

Perhaps it’s all a trick and he’ll stab her the moment she drifts off to sleep. Or perhaps it’s time for her to compartmentalize, as she always has, and start over with the help of the one person who’s cheated death more times than she has.

She begins to place Riley North in a box in her mind, cut off from the person she has to be now. She thinks about taking Sloane up on his offer.

She thinks of the future.


End file.
